"Glitter is the herpes of the craft world." John Heffron
There's another expression along the lines of 'If you want to find a Sweet Adeline, just follow the trail of glitter and sequins.'
These days, that trail will lead you straight to my dining room.
So we've managed to slide head-first into the first week of June!
After finishing the last log cabin, started by someone else and supplemented by me, I wanted to make another one right away using Elaine Adair's "Scrappy Rebuilt Log Cabin" pattern. It's intrigued me for years. I also had a drawer still crammed with scraps and strips gleaned from the CF!Q bins during The Great Reorganization, and felt they'd be perfect for this kind of project.
Many days were spent cutting 1.5" strips into the proper lengths for a traditional log cabin block. Having just worked with 40 blocks that seemed to have been constructed using the 'sew it down then trim it off' method of building, and not being terribly impressed with the results, I wanted to make blocks using known lengths.
I've quilted the sandwich featured in the Gemischt post (I am LOVING my new weightlifting system!) and am in the process of sewing down the binding. I decided to use up ALL my 1.75" binding scraps, acknowledging that would mean having to sew the binding down by hand, but also relishing the fact that those scraps would be GONE, never to be replenished. I figured out some time ago that 1.75" was just a little too narrow for comfort, double-fold-binding-wise, and have been cutting bindings at 2" for several years now. Yesterday I simply decided I'd use up the narrow ones, once and for all.
There were some long strips but LOTS more short strips. I briefly worried about and wondered how to avoid seams in the corners, what with all the connecting of the itty-bitty pieces. Well, DUH Carolyn: plan the corners and put the long pieces there! And as long as I'm planning the corners, I might as well use the dark scraps so the mitered pattern would shine without competition.
From my blog post of 7/21/2023:
"Yesterday morning was devoted to determining a layout for Celia's Kaffe Fassett project. I'm currently sewing the black borders on the final full diamond block (bottom row, blue center), so I need to plan the half blocks that will fill in the bottom and side edges, and the quarter blocks for the corners.
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| Lots
of black border overlapping happening here so I could fit everything on
the design wall. There are really two lines of black hexagons between
each block. |
"After several hours of pinning and arranging I was content with this layout and have selected pairings for some of the half blocks. Once those are complete and added to this mix, I'll figure out the final pairings. Based on my sewing rate of 2 months to complete a full block, I should be revisiting this in another 6 months."
Wow. That was prophetic.
Well, a cold kinda caught me, enough to make my ears/teeth/throat ache, my eyes itch, and saddle me with tiredness and ennui, but without (yet) the coughing and blowing. Despite the fact that it didn't feel COVIDish (symptoms being mainly, except for the tiredness, above the lungs), I just took a test. It confirmed what I thought--just a nuisance Summer Cold. I hates 'em (and now my nose is irritated too).
I've been trying to decide what to make for my mother's August banner. A week or three ago this might have been in the running (with the heading "Summer's bounty").
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| The black rectangle would've been filled with a fabric that looks like a woven basket. |
Yesterday as I quietly worked on Celia's hexagon project I decided to go simple--a couple of FPP sunflowers bookending 4- or 9-patches made with fabrics from the Kitchen Sink project. I'll still use the heading, though. I find there's a very real "danger" of trying to make subsequent banners more eye-catching than the last. Crazy-making, to be sure.
While working on Celia's project yesterday I decided its name: "Joie de Vivre". I finished the last full block and started sewing together a corner block, plus basted numerous black hexies (my mom felt like staying in bed most of the afternoon). Very soon I'll be joining blocks together. There are several residents and their daughters who've been closely tracking this project. Celia's joy spreads ever on!
My eldest son (Thing 1) was true to his word--when we went over to his place for a visit (I played Beat Saber on his VR device), he had 3 zigzag cams for me! He'd made them on his 3D printer from different types of filament, each having its own advantage. This one fit best right away (and even better once I scraped a little out of the middle).
It occurred to me recently (as I was making a new 'busy bag' of hand-sewing projects) that I've been shuffling a lot of Celia's GFG blocks back and forth, but haven't really taken any kind of accounting as to how many I've made over the past year and a half.
And, as I type this, I realize I never blogged about this project in the first place!
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| Celia, March 2020 |
